In my opinion, this year more than any other illustrates the need for a playoff. If it works for D-II and other levels of college football, it can work for D-I football as well. Your thoughts?

December 3rd, 2007, 2:29 pm

steensn

RIP Killer

Joined: June 26th, 2006, 1:03 pmPosts: 13429

1) I voted no, I think the BCS is just as good as a playoff system, each having their own flaws. Our own human idea of what is fair is pushes a lot of people to a playoff system, but in reality, a team that played and beat every top ranked team possible could lose to the same team in a playoff first round and be out of the championship. Even though they beat, lets say, 10 top 10 teams.

We've already seen time after time in playoffs the teams we considered the best teams not make it to the cahmpionship losing to a team they already beat. I think the BCS makes the regular season exciting. Without the BCS, no one would even care that USC lost to Stanford or WV got beat by Pitt.

2) IMO, the BCS makes every game count, maybe it needs refined on how it picks the final canidates. But I think OSU and LSU is the logical choice for the championship game no matter how you look at it.

**EDIT***

3) Also, can you imagine 2-4 more weeks of games added onto an already heavy workload for these COLLEGE STUDENTS? Honestly, only a handlful of most teams players are looking at a real shot at being in the NFL for longer than a year, the rest need a good education. I am not in favor of on conferance title games for the same reason, they take away from the studies of these students during exam week. I like the Big Ten because they stay away from the exam week, a playoff would just make it worse. Might as well just remove the teams from the schools and make it a minor league team at that point if we are going to forget they are students.

1) I voted no, I think the BCS is just as good as a playoff system, each having their own flaws. Our own human idea of what is fair is pushes a lot of people to a playoff system, but in reality, a team that played and beat every top ranked team possible could lose to the same team in a playoff first round and be out of the championship. Even though they beat, lets say, 10 top 10 teams.

We've already seen time after time in playoffs the teams we considered the best teams not make it to the cahmpionship losing to a team they already beat. I think the BCS makes the regular season exciting. Without the BCS, no one would even care that USC lost to Stanford or WV got beat by Pitt.

2) IMO, the BCS makes every game count, maybe it needs refined on how it picks the final canidates. But I think OSU and LSU is the logical choice for the championship game no matter how you look at it.

**EDIT***

3) Also, can you imagine 2-4 more weeks of games added onto an already heavy workload for these COLLEGE STUDENTS? Honestly, only a handlful of most teams players are looking at a real shot at being in the NFL for longer than a year, the rest need a good education. I am not in favor of on conferance title games for the same reason, they take away from the studies of these students during exam week. I like the Big Ten because they stay away from the exam week, a playoff would just make it worse. Might as well just remove the teams from the schools and make it a minor league team at that point if we are going to forget they are students.

What I envision is a 6 or 8 team playoff. Nobody outside of those top few teams has a shot at a national title anyway. If they did it that way, it wouldn't take away from the regular season, because you'd still have to be a top team to have a shot at the title.

And your comment about taking away from the student's academic time, well that's just a fallacy in my opinion. If you honestly think that these guys aren't spending just as much time practicing now as they would if they had a game coming up, I think you're delusional. Also, if D-II students can handle it, why can't D-I? In a lot of cases, schools with D-II athletic programs have more difficult academic programs than D-I programs. I just don't buy it. Doing the playoff this way wouldn't extend the season any further, and you could still have the bowl games right around New Year's to decide the national title. It could be done, it just isn't because the NCAA and BCS don't want to admit that they've screwed it up.

I voted YES, but I doubt that we'll see it anytime soon, if ever. The big conferences and the Bowls have gotten too greedy for their own good and don't want to lose what they have. On top of that, playing an extra 2-3 games would hurt the student-players and some coaches and ADs frown upon that.

What I would like to see is a 8 team playoff consisting of the 6 major conference champions and two at-large teams. The first four games could be played during Christmas week when the players aren't in class. The 2nd round could be played during New Year week with the championship being played the week after. It's not like they aren't playing games during this time frame now anyways.

The current Bowls could also be incorporated into this, as well. The Championship Game could be rotated between the Rose, Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar like they are now, with two of the others getting the 2nd round games. The first round could be played at the other bowl site as well as the Capital One, Cotton, and Outback. The other bowls could remain as they are now with a few more being added, if needed.

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December 3rd, 2007, 4:11 pm

steensn

RIP Killer

Joined: June 26th, 2006, 1:03 pmPosts: 13429

Touchdown Jesus wrote:

steensn wrote:

1) I voted no, I think the BCS is just as good as a playoff system, each having their own flaws. Our own human idea of what is fair is pushes a lot of people to a playoff system, but in reality, a team that played and beat every top ranked team possible could lose to the same team in a playoff first round and be out of the championship. Even though they beat, lets say, 10 top 10 teams.

We've already seen time after time in playoffs the teams we considered the best teams not make it to the cahmpionship losing to a team they already beat. I think the BCS makes the regular season exciting. Without the BCS, no one would even care that USC lost to Stanford or WV got beat by Pitt.

2) IMO, the BCS makes every game count, maybe it needs refined on how it picks the final canidates. But I think OSU and LSU is the logical choice for the championship game no matter how you look at it.

**EDIT***

3) Also, can you imagine 2-4 more weeks of games added onto an already heavy workload for these COLLEGE STUDENTS? Honestly, only a handlful of most teams players are looking at a real shot at being in the NFL for longer than a year, the rest need a good education. I am not in favor of on conferance title games for the same reason, they take away from the studies of these students during exam week. I like the Big Ten because they stay away from the exam week, a playoff would just make it worse. Might as well just remove the teams from the schools and make it a minor league team at that point if we are going to forget they are students.

What I envision is a 6 or 8 team playoff. Nobody outside of those top few teams has a shot at a national title anyway. If they did it that way, it wouldn't take away from the regular season, because you'd still have to be a top team to have a shot at the title.

And your comment about taking away from the student's academic time, well that's just a fallacy in my opinion. If you honestly think that these guys aren't spending just as much time practicing now as they would if they had a game coming up, I think you're delusional. Also, if D-II students can handle it, why can't D-I? In a lot of cases, schools with D-II athletic programs have more difficult academic programs than D-I programs. I just don't buy it. Doing the playoff this way wouldn't extend the season any further, and you could still have the bowl games right around New Year's to decide the national title. It could be done, it just isn't because the NCAA and BCS don't want to admit that they've screwed it up.

The student thing is not a fallacy, I can't imagine a football player taking the same test I took with practices for playoff games and doing well. There is no way. Some conferences would still have a championship game, leaving hardely any time for players to get a break from football and do some schoolwork.

Last edited by steensn on December 3rd, 2007, 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

December 3rd, 2007, 4:12 pm

TheRealWags

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Joined: December 31st, 2004, 9:55 amPosts: 12509

slybri19 wrote:

The current Bowls could also be incorporated into this, as well. The Championship Game could be rotated between the Rose, Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar like they are now, with two of the others getting the 2nd round games. The first round could be played at the other bowl site as well as the Capital One, Cotton, and Outback. The other bowls could remain as they are now with a few more being added, if needed.

From what I remember seeing yesterday during part of the BCS pick show (whatever it was called) they showed a total of 5 BCS bowl: Fiesta, Orange, Rose, Sugar AND a BCS Championship game. Did I see that correctly??? Is this something new? I thought I remember hearing something about an And 1 game that was going to be added this year, can anyone confirm or deny this?

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December 3rd, 2007, 4:21 pm

Pablo

RIP Killer

Joined: August 6th, 2004, 9:21 amPosts: 9967Location: Dallas

ummm steesn, the system is flawed it favors those teams like OSU that schedule a cupcake non-conference schedule (Youngstown State, Akron, Kent State - come on) and don't play in a conference championship game. So in fact the BCS doesn't make every game count, rather just the opposite.

Are the two best teams playing in the Championship, umm no. In fact USC is playing the best football in the country right now. The oddsmakers just did spreads if all the top 10 teams played on a neutral field who would be favored in the most games = USC, followed by LSU and Oklahoma. Unfortunately, we get to see OSU get blown out again this year.

As for the heavy workload due to a playoff system, every other division of NCAA football does a playoffs and those work fine. Imagine spreading 3-4 games over the 7 weeks OSU won't play until the Championship game.

How is a team that was ranked #1 (Missouri) not playing in a BCS game. They are ranked #6 and not playing. They beat #8 Kansas who is playing in a BCS game. They also beat Illinois who is playing in a BCS game. Can you say "screwed"?

The current Bowls could also be incorporated into this, as well. The Championship Game could be rotated between the Rose, Fiesta, Orange, and Sugar like they are now, with two of the others getting the 2nd round games. The first round could be played at the other bowl site as well as the Capital One, Cotton, and Outback. The other bowls could remain as they are now with a few more being added, if needed.

From what I remember seeing yesterday during part of the BCS pick show (whatever it was called) they showed a total of 5 BCS bowl: Fiesta, Orange, Rose, Sugar AND a BCS Championship game. Did I see that correctly??? Is this something new? I thought I remember hearing something about an And 1 game that was going to be added this year, can anyone confirm or deny this?

This year, New Orleans gets their traditional Sugar Bowl game AND the National Championship game a week later. Last year, it was the Fiesta Bowl that got both games. This is probably another reason that they're fighting it.

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December 3rd, 2007, 4:52 pm

wjb21ndtown

Pablo wrote:

ummm steesn, the system is flawed it favors those teams like OSU that schedule a cupcake non-conference schedule (Youngstown State, Akron, Kent State - come on) and don't play in a conference championship game. So in fact the BCS doesn't make every game count, rather just the opposite.

Are the two best teams playing in the Championship, umm no. In fact USC is playing the best football in the country right now. The oddsmakers just did spreads if all the top 10 teams played on a neutral field who would be favored in the most games = USC, followed by LSU and Oklahoma. Unfortunately, we get to see OSU get blown out again this year.

As for the heavy workload due to a playoff system, every other division of NCAA football does a playoffs and those work fine. Imagine spreading 3-4 games over the 7 weeks OSU won't play until the Championship game.

How is a team that was ranked #1 (Missouri) not playing in a BCS game. They are ranked #6 and not playing. They beat #8 Kansas who is playing in a BCS game. They also beat Illinois who is playing in a BCS game. Can you say "screwed"?

This system sucks - period.

I agree 100%...

Also, the "student thing" IS a fallace... And it is a fallacy for two reasons... The bye week and conference championship games... From what I understand, not all collegiate teams have a bye week... Some do and some don't... And, not all conferences have champoinship games. There was a playoff plan proposed on Yahoo sports that would have added only ONE extra game after getting rid of both the bye week and the conference playoff games, and it should be instituted... It came complete with a full schedule of who would have played this year and the schedule was AWESOME...

OSU, however, would have lost to Virginia Tech in the first round though... So I can see why Steen would be against it...

December 3rd, 2007, 10:03 pm

steensn

RIP Killer

Joined: June 26th, 2006, 1:03 pmPosts: 13429

I should clarify, I'm not only against the playoffs, I'm against games played after Thanksgiving and before Christmas. If the student thing is a fallacy, why are the students doing so bad?

More bowl-bound Division I football programs are meeting the NCAA's minimum acceptable academic standards than last year, according to a study released Monday.

The report by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida found that of the 64 teams headed for bowls, 73 percent earned recent Academic Progress Rate scores of above 925, which means they would not be subject to NCAA penalties.

In 2006, only 63 percent met the cutoff.

The APR measures athletes' progress toward graduation. The study used the NCAA's APR data from the 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years.

"While there's still work to be done, football student-athletes in Division I are doing better academically than in the past," NCAA spokesman Erik Christianson said.

Richard Lapchick, the institute's director and the report's primary author, raised concerns about the ongoing gap between the graduation rates of white and black football players. But he also noted that black football players are graduating at a greater rate than black students as a whole.

At 42 percent of the bowl-bound schools, fewer than half of black football players graduated within six years during the period evaluated. The study looked at the freshman classes that entered from the 1997-98 through the 2000-01 school years.

Navy and Boston College were the two bowl-bound programs with the most impressive APR and graduation rate numbers. Navy, which faces Utah in the Poinsettia Bowl, had an APR of 982, with 95 percent of football players and 89 percent of black players graduating. Boston College, which meets Michigan State in the Champs Sports Bowl, had an APR of 976, with 93 percent of football players and 90 percent of black players graduating.

All eight of the Atlantic Coast Conference's bowl-bound teams had an APR score above 925.

Three bowl-bound programs had football graduation rates that were higher than that for all their athletes: Cincinnati, TCU and Texas Tech.

I should clarify, I'm not only against the playoffs, I'm against games played after Thanksgiving and before Christmas. If the student thing is a fallacy, why are the students doing so bad?

When have these students (athletes) excelled in school? It is no secret than other for thier physical talent that many of these kids would not be in their respective schools... Most of them barely made it through high school, and had help doing that.

A LOT of schools should not meet these requirements... Why? Because the requirements DISFAVOR students leaving the NCAA ranks to go onto the pros. Adrian Peterson, Calvin Johnson, Reggie Bush, Darren McFadden, etc. should NOT stay in school... It is a bad economical decision, and a HUGE risk. Come out, get paid, and IF you get hurt go back and get your degree... But that hurts BOTH "black graduation rates" AND "graduation rates"... It seems to me that nearly every top notch program isn't going to be able to meet those requirements, so your argument IS a fallacy.

December 4th, 2007, 2:32 pm

steensn

RIP Killer

Joined: June 26th, 2006, 1:03 pmPosts: 13429

You are assuming that these guys who leave early are a large percentage of the rate. It's completely not true, that is a very small percentage of these. It is no fallacy, to many players never destined to make it into the NFL don't graduate or get a good education because of the level of committment stolen by college sports.

I can speak for this, I was in D1 college track and I barely found time to get my studies done. I know what it is like and track is nothing like the committment for football. If we want these athletes who would never be in some of these schools in the first place to get an education they could never afford, then we should allow them to take full advantage of this.

Are there special cases and bad apples, of course. But some schools do it right and almost none of them play in between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Why can' we have a bracket system like college football. But break it down differently. For example you have to win x amount of games in order to enter the bracket. The bracket would be take the top two teams from each conference, and put them in the bracket. Single elimination play conference against conference; Big 10 against Big 12, winners move on, then wittle it down to winners of the next. Until the final game, it works for all parties and puts the best against the best.

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December 6th, 2007, 6:52 pm

steensn

RIP Killer

Joined: June 26th, 2006, 1:03 pmPosts: 13429

DevilDoc wrote:

Why can' we have a bracket system like college football. But break it down differently. For example you have to win x amount of games in order to enter the bracket. The bracket would be take the top two teams from each conference, and put them in the bracket. Single elimination play conference against conference; Big 10 against Big 12, winners move on, then wittle it down to winners of the next. Until the final game, it works for all parties and puts the best against the best.

Cuz idiots like me like the crazyness and quirckyness of the BCS, lol...

1) Every other collegiate sport uses a playoff. This includes every level of football except D-1A.

2) NCAA Basketball/March Madness. NCAA basketball teams can miss an entire MONTH of classes for the playoffs and nobody seems to mind this. Plus their travel schedules throughout the season are much more demanding than football players. Football teams rarely miss class because they travel on weekends, with few exceptions. Basketball teams travel constantly.

Not to mention all the pre-season tournaments (pre-season NIT, etc) that are only exhibition games but cause the players to be on the road for two weeks or so.

The resistance to a D-1A playoff is 100% about money. The bowl system is profitable, which is more important to the NCAA than fairness.